October 2009 was the (8th consecutive) best month ever since the creation of Linux Mint.

The overall income is up 8%.

Our user base is the second largest in the desktop Linux market.

The community support has never been so big. 147 people gathered to send us more than $3,800! We also got a single donation of $461 from Einar Orn Eidsson (Iceland). This has never been so high.

In terms of events this was a very quiet month. We’ve been working hard on the new upcoming release though and there will be plenty of reasons for people to get excited about Linux Mint 8. November will be eventful and I hope this will please the community, especially after seeing how much it’s been supporting our project. Many thanks to all the donors and sponsors behing Linux Mint and congratulations to them, to us and to this project for another fantastic month.

off topic do you think that google will track where you go and what you do and report to people i feel that they always track censor or ban something and i dont want a system that is going to log everything i do

some people think they are the government software company and i am really kind of wondering now if you truely get a system or the system

I have used Ubuntu and Kubuntu for a while, but Mint 7 is my Distro of Choice. I have got my wife off MS and on to Linux finally after 3 years of trying and I rarely boot into Ubuntu or Kubuntu now. Mint 7 seems to work out of the box without much tweeking… If it does not, the forum helps me out all the time….

Many thanks to the donors and special thanks for the top donors. You are doing great. No wonder Clem and the team work so hard to get their job done so very well. Seeing so much good faith and willingness to support would make many developers feel great doing their job and also keep doing a good job. Thank you again and many thanks to the developers for all the work so far. Lots of people enjoy this free operating system and many more will follow. 🙂

Although I haven’t donated so far, I plan to do so sometime soon – but I think I would rather sponsor the project for a while. It makes more sense to me as I’m a regular mint user. I cannot afford giving you the amount of money Einar Om Eidsson has been able to as i don’t even earn that much in a single month but I can spare some of my money monthly in the long term and hopefully others will be able to do the same. Linux Mint is going the right direction and I want to help. 🙂

what new tech is in 8 i love 7 its fast for my laptop i only use for information and socializing is there any exciting speed improvements like ext4 and tweeking of ui and codes or is it mostly security only based and just harder to boot with and i mean no offense by that i love mint i feel its the most classy

With regard to fhein´ s (post 12) comment.
YOU YOURSELF SAID LINUX MINT IS AWESOME.
That is how the money is used!!!
Just out of curiosity, what makes you such a snoop?
From: A VERY SATISFIED USER!!!
THANKS GUYS! CLEMint ROCKS!

Mint is awesome, but out of curiosity, is there some place I can read the project budget report to see how the donated money is used?

No you can’t but I’ll tell you so listen to me:

Mint DEVS usually use raised money to party all over the world, drink gallons of whisky, tequila and vodka (with energetic drinks) and spend nights with lot of girls.
You may think “Umm, that’s too much, even for the lot of money they get”.
Well, you must know the DEV Team have theire wives and sons working on asian massive factories building sneakers and the money they got of that work is used by theire husbands/fathers to keep partying all over the world – wives and kids all sleep in the same bed when the other is awake working.
The devs also assist to Linux conferences if:
1. by chance is there just any in the city they’re partying
2. hangover let them assist.

Hope I contributed to clarify you how the money is spend around this place.